Mercer Offers the Chief a Chance at Life
by He Who See's
Summary: With the dawn split in half and drifiting through unknown space, things are looking bleak for the Chief and Cortana. Fortunatly  though not really, help comes in the form of everyone's favorite dimension hopping psycho, Alex Mercer!    NOW A FULL FLEDGED STORY BY POPULAR DEMAND!


_"Wake me…when you need me…"_

In many a realm and dimension, those were some of the most famous words ever uttered by anyone. Man, machine, or the odd blend of the two currently standing seven feet tall inside a cryotube. For the blend was more than the sum of the parts that went into his creation. He had done more for the human race and all other races than any other being alive in the current age. He had fought enemies for decades whose unrelenting nature would have caused lesser men to buckle and break beneath their sheer might. He had stopped two ancient threats in the galaxy from voiding it of life at least twice. He was the one of many: The Master Chief, and the pod he was in lied inside the rear section of the UNSC's Forward Until Dawn.

As the pod's hatch slid to a close, and the last remnant of the SPARTAN program let the chill of cryo-sleep overtake him, his long time friend and ally known as the Artificial Intelligence construct Cortana sighed a breath of both relief and exasperation on her holographic pedestal.

_"Well, it may not be the shut-eye I was hoping for, but at least it'll be a good long while before he'll be constantly cracking skulls again."_ She thought to herself as the cryogenic process ended.

Beginning her task of monitoring the ship and the space around it for as far as the ship's remaining sensors could allow, she thought about everything they had been through: all of the unlikely situations they had managed to come out of alive and relatively intact. Sadly, she smiled at the irony of the fate their current situation would likely end in. Suffocation, starvation, and dehydration for John and a good heaping helping of insanity for her. Something she felt was creeping up on her even as minute ten after her SPARTAN went under ticked by.

Suffice to say when out of nowhere a man in faded blue jeans, plain black shoes, and a black leather jacket with its hood pulled up over a grey hoodie with its hood pulled up appeared inside the oxygen-less and freezing vacuum of The Dawn with his feet planted on the flooring as though the ship's anti-gravity systems weren't completely totaled, she thought that Rampancy had shattered what stability she had and had gone off the deep end in a way not even the Gravemind could have imagined sooner, rather than later. A thought not deterred when the "man" pointed towards the Chief's pod with an index finger and began moving his thumb up all the while looking at her holographic avatar with those cloudy, piercing gray eyes of his.

Realizing that he meant to defrost the SPARTAN from his hushed casket, and that doing so even without the "man's" command was the most prudent thing she could so in this scenario, she complied and began the warm-up procedure. A procedure she humorously thought the "man" would need, except his would presumably involve a nice warm bath of molten lava considering the subzero temperatures he was currently experiencing.

"Chief," she began in the SPARTAN'S helmet speaker as he slowly regained consciousness, "I'm fairly certain that it's only been a few minutes since you were sent under, but I need you to verify something for me."

_"Well that was quick." _he thought groggily as his vision slowly returned to him while the hatch hissed open. "Verify what?" he replied gruffly.

"That I haven't somehow gone completely and utterly insane in that speck of time or didn't manage to confuse said speck for a much longer time in which I grew insane enough to radically lack the ability to tell time properly." she said, clutching her photonic head.

As quickly as he could sprint, the Chief lifted himself from the pod and turned towards Cortana, shaking off the jitters of cryo-sleep as he regarded his companion.

"What are you talking about?"

"Oh nothing, nothing." The UNSC A.I. said. "Just the man in the equivalent of a toga when it comes to protection against the harsh conditions of space who somehow hasn't been claimed by exposure and is standing behind you perfectly still as though a couple of scorpions were tied to his feet."

Despite seeing nothing beneath that golden visor of his, the formerly captured A.I. could just feel his eyes narrowing upon her.

"Cortana…" he said with a tinge of annoyance.

"I'm serious big guy. He's getting a good look at the back of your MJOLNIR armor right now."

Before the seven-foot tall super-soldier could respond however, he felt a mental tug not unlike the cool-water sensation he felt whenever he plugged in a data-crystal into his helmet. However, rather than end at that, the sensation manifested itself into a voice.

_"She's right you know."_

Quickly, the SPARTAN twirled around at a full 180 degrees, his eyes widening (no small feat for a man who survived encounters with a parasite that had brought an unbelievably advanced race to its knees with nary a blink) as he took in the sight of the man Cortana had mentioned, standing in front of him with folded arms.

"Glad to see you're finally up and at 'em Mr.117." the man said, his lips not moving an inch as he casually walked over to the half-ton power house of death and destruction as though he was someone who couldn't snap his neck in seconds. "I hear even ten minutes in cryo-sleep can be rough, but it's nice that you hardly seem worse for wear."

The Master Chief was about to speak when the man stopped a few feet away and put his hand up.

"Please Mr.117. The Dawn currently has less breathable atmosphere than a meeting room containing UNSC and Separatist military leaders. Any and all exchanges made vocally won't carry over well in such a vacuum as you _should _be well aware of." the man _said _in a slightly condescending tone. "If you wish to communicate, just thinking about your response will suffice."

The SPARTAN closed his mouth and inwardly said, _"Alright."_

_"Good."_ said the man. _"Now before we get started, I think it only fair to introduce myself. I am Alex J. Mercer, and prefer to be referred to by either my first or last name. Also "awesome," but that's a story for another time..."_

Slightly taken aback by the humorous tone with which the man, Mercer, spoke that last sentence, the Chief replied in his typically cold, harsh, and serious demeanor.

_"Master Chief Petty Officer—"_

_"—SPARTAN-117. Also known more simply as The Master Chief, Master Chief, Chief, John-117, 117, John, SPARTAN, SPARTAN-117, Sierra-117, call-sign 'Sierra', and my personal favorite: The Demon." _Interrupted Mercer.

If the Chief had managed to bottle up any surprise derived from this situation before, one could only imagine the cap on that bottle bursting slightly as he listened to Alex's interruption. Something most people would think twice about before doing to a fully trained SPARTAN-II. Not to mention the fact that he knew _his_ call-sign.

_"How do you know—"_ He began ,before being cut-off once again by the black-leather jacketed man to his front.

_"Know what exactly?"_ Mercer asked, crossing his arms over his chest. _"Know that you were kidnapped by Dr. Elizabeth Hasley at age six largely due to your ability to predict coin tosses with pinpoint accuracy, were sent to the UNSC strong-hold planet "Reach" along with lots of other kidnapped tykes so you could be raised to be super-soldiers by one Frank Mendez of ONI, were painfully augmented at age 14 to take your already Olympian-athletic body into the superhuman range and given highly advanced powered armor that has gotten progressively better over the past few decades, during which time you fought groups of rebellious dissidents known as "The Insurrectionists" for a short while before fighting off a group of overzealous extraterrestrials known as "The Covenant" for twenty-seven years until, finally, their invasion of Reach, which you and the crew aboard The Pillar of Autumn barely escaped, lead to the deaths of the remaining SPARTANS and ensured that you were the last of your particular breed of Super-Soldiers?"_

As one could imagine, John was speechless and made even more so when Mercer continued.

_"Or was it just how I know what your call-sign was?"_ Alex said as a cruel smirk formed on his face. _"Well to answer your question there Mr.117, I know everything about you. Where you were born, where you were when "Dr. Ballsy" as I like to call her kidnapped you, what actually went into your Augmentations, what happened on the first Halo, how on the way back home you somehow managed to find a planet cracking weapon and used it to destroy a Covenant colony, and every single major event leading up to you being here at this very moment. Hell, I even know where your parents are right now. They're fine by the way."_

The Chief glanced around the room before his enhanced vision came to rest upon the form of an Assault Rifle on a nearby rack, all within the span of a second. A movement most would have dismissed and overlooked. A movement however, that Alex picked-up on.

_"I also know what you're thinking right now. How all that training, all that sense of duty, all of those experiences are yelling at you, demanding you to take that there assault rifle and either threaten or kill me with it to ensure that what I know doesn't fall into "worse" hands."_

_"Really?" _The Chief said, his voice betraying no emotion that would suggest such a thing, despite his mind actively doing so.

_"It's kind of hard not to notice the way your thoughts are being telegraphed."_

That did it. Out of all of the things this man had said, implying what he did threw the Chief over the edge. Swiftly, he ran towards the rack, intent on grabbing the weapon it held. He would have made it too, if an invisible force didn't hold his body in place mid-sprint...and prevent him from doing anything else other than breath for that matter.

_"What's the matter Chief? Feel like you're encased in a block of concrete? That no matter how much you try and struggle, you just can't seem to move? Good. Maybe now I can have your full and undivided attention."_

_"Chief! What's going on!? John!"_ Yelled Cortana through his helmet's internal speakers.

Alex's head tilted towards Cortana's and then back to the Chief.

_"Hold on a sec."_

Mercer's right arm morphed into a tentacle that lunged towards Cortana's chip and yanked it from its pedestal before returning and morphing back into an arm.

_"Alright. Now I have your undivided attention."_

Inwardly, the Chief yelled, _"Release Cortana __**right**__ now, or so help me I'll—"_

With a flick of his wrist, Alex telekinetically flung the Chief hard against the ceiling of the room and held him there despite his physical protesting.

_"You'll __**what **__my little cyborg friend? Continue trying to threaten me despite the fact that it's been made clear that I can easily overpower you whenever I want with a little good ol' telekinesis? Not a very bright move."_

With another flick of his wrist, Alex brought the Chief back down to the ground hard, pinning him again with his telekinetic hold. _"Despite that there bit of errant stupidity that contrasts rather highly with the supposed genius level intelligence you were given, I've come here to offer you something I'm certain you'll find to be quite…enticing."_

_"What's that?" _The Chief asked gruffly again, shooting the man a look that could kill if the rage behind it could have manifested itself into a dagger.

_"Why a chance at life Mr.117. I mean, look at your current position. With you being stuck in only half a frigate in unknown space with who knows how much power left with an A.I., who may soon go rampant watching over your vulnerable cryogenically suspended body, life is fast becoming a rare commodity for you. One whose value is likely to plummet to nothing if you stay here. Surely you've deduced as much."_

The SPARTAN let out a sigh. _"I'd be lying if I said my current situation had much of an upside. But then again if I was lying, I suppose you'd easily be able to tell."_

_"You'd suppose correctly." _Replied Alex. _"So Chief, how about it? I take you and your entertaining yet at times annoying A.I. buddy off of this heap of Titanium-A for "Ass" and into some place much safer, and in return, the two of you help me with…an experiment or two. Once they're completed, I'll send the two of you back into friendly territory and you can spend the remainder of your days "serving the UNSC" or "bumming it in a large mansion provided by the UNSC for everything you've done," as I like to refer to it."_

A long silence fell upon the room before the Chief's response came. _"And if I refuse?"_

_"Unlikely,"_ snapped Alex. _"For that would imply you actually had a choice in the matter."_

Despite his best attempt at resistance, the Chief suddenly felt consciousness rapidly begin to leave him. The last thing his senses registered was Alex's form standing over him while whistling "Olly Olly Oxen Free."


End file.
